In my Heart
by llirium
Summary: A short introspective story on Haruka and Michiru, before they met up with the other soldiers. it's not a songfic from the NA SuperS season...


Slowly waking from her dreams, Michiru's eyes fluttered as she tried to move, stretching  
stiffness away. Fumbling in the dark, she edged around the bed and opened the  
venetian blind in Haruka's apartment.  
  
The glare of Tokyo that night made the stars give in to the city lights on Earth. So much  
so that the moonlight, the vastness of space, had no choice but to drift away. Michiru  
adjusted the blind so that small slats of light escaped through the cracks. In the blur of  
the dark, she saw Haruka in the striped light, sleeping. It seemed familiar...  
  
~ ... Haruka... Uranus... watching the star-filled space of the large window outside the  
door. Neptune had woken up in the middle of the night and wondered what she doing...  
until she saw her partner brush a tear aside with her hand... ~  
  
Shaking the suddenly vivid memory away, Michiru returned to the bed, and nudged the  
woman beside her gently. Haruka slowly came to and smiled peacefully at her. Michiru  
returned the smile. Haruka slowly pulled her into a close embrace. Both were silent.   
There was nothing but them in the world for a time.  
  
Haruka finally spoke. "I've missed this..." she mused, half joking. Michiru sighed,  
sharing some small relief that she had remembered the same.  
  
"Don't be so modest." Michiru whispered, causing each to blush slightly.  
  
Perhaps it was the very first night she had remembered, feeling this way. No regrets.   
She was scared to death, but not so much anymore. At least Haruka seemed as  
scared to death as she was.  
  
Michiru spoke softly, loosening the embrace. "But, things have changed since then..."  
Michiru stopped, wondering if Haruka remembered as much as she had first thought.   
Spectres of the past were continually haunting the possibilities of a happy future.  
  
"Does that matter?" Haruka asked, honestly curious.  
  
"Not anymore." Though Michiru had a look of peace on her face, Haruka saw stray bits  
of sadness gathering in the other's eyes. Haruka pulled Michiru closer, as if to save  
her, both of them, from being alone again... ever.  
  
Haruka wanted to forget the dreams of vague memory that made her wake up in a cold  
sweat. She never considered those nightmares again if she could help it.  
  
It dawned on her while she was looking at Michiru with deep concern. This may be  
their only chance to be together for a long time.  
  
Perhaps... the last time.  
  
"If it is destined to be." Haruka didn't bother softening her words, even for Michiru. The  
end could come before their duty even begins. To be silent martyrs to an unknown  
cause was a hard destiny to consider.  
  
"I believe in it." Michiru softly caressed her partner's cheek, feeling the past and future  
dissolve as she looked into adoring green eyes.  
  
Haruka smiled, and pulled the blind closed.  
  
  
* * * *  
  
When morning came, the first signs of spring were coming. Warm rains left the city,  
and bathed it in cool sunshine. They had both come outside, silently admiring the  
world.  
  
"It's beautiful." Michiru remarked.  
  
"Yeah." Haruka agreed. With an impish smile, her gaze fell on her car. "Perfect day for  
a ride, wouldn't you say?"  
  
Michiru smiled, realizing that was what she had planned all along. "True."  
  
Large gusts of wind blew her hair away from her face as Haruka drove along the twisted  
road. She enjoyed racing the wind.  
  
After arriving at the beach, the blond stayed by the car, watching... it felt good to be  
near her, to be near the sea. They were both a part of her being...  
  
Michiru wore an aqua dress, a white hat to shield her face from the sun. She had taken  
her notebook with her, like an all-purpose diary. Inside were the lyrics to some of her  
favourite songs, poems she had read, and sometimes just her own thoughts. She  
thought that using it for anything was better than restricting her words to one thing.  
  
She skipped past a few pages and skimmed over things she would always read.  
  
"...Tenou-san..." A smile came to her lips as she thought of Haruka when they had first  
met. So different. Michiru remembered that lost look her partner's eyes used to have in  
crowds of people, as if something had torn hope from her and she was still mourning its  
loss. Now, that sadness too, was gone.  
  
"... why must we wait in the cornered light..." That was a piece from her own poem. It  
was the old impatience for romance when she barely knew what it was; it was naively  
peaceful.  
  
She skipped a few more pages. "... light hits the gloom on the grave..."  
  
This was an English song that was sometimes on the radio. The music varied from the  
piano to violin, hauntingly lovely and passionate. The melody described the feelings  
she could never fully express.  
  
Michiru opened a fresh page and began to write with few pauses. '... In my thoughts... I  
visualize a house by the sea, where I can live with you. A white house on the cliff, we  
could hear the waves crashing and falling. It would be nice.'  
  
Michiru stopped, a little embarrassed at what Haruka would say if she ever saw this,  
then easily dismissed the thought. It didn't matter.  
  
'Perhaps it would have been better if you were a normal, boring person instead. But  
then I wouldn't have wanted you. Even if it was destined to be, I wouldn't have loved  
you.'  
  
Almost guilty at her words, she also saw some truth in it.  
  
'Standing in crowds, you were always alone. I've known about you since I was a child,  
becuase I've known that there was someone meant for me, even as a girl. But that's  
not why I love you. Following what others expect of you isn't the way life is. I'm not  
worried about that. You're cute enough anyway.'  
  
Michiru stopped in mid-sentence, laughing softly. She noticeably felt eyes on her  
shoulder as her laughter slowly faded.  
  
It turned out that Haruka was staring at her, distracted. The blond smiled, her eyes  
wandering to the ocean. Again there was a hint of that sad look in her partner's eyes:   
regret, sorrow, and a little hope.  
  
Michiru sighed. 'I wish that we didn't have to meet like this, even if that would mean I'd  
break up with you. But you don't rely on anyone, I know. You are faithful to what you  
know is right until the end. That's why it's okay. It's what I've chosen. I'm chasing my  
dreams. I've decided to stay with you, the only one that truly knows loneliness, forever.   
It's what I feel is right to do in my heart, Haruka.'  
  
Michiru closed the book, then opened it and read the last sentence over. As she closed  
again, she ascended the steep path, the sounds of the sea echoing about her. She  
took her first step into her future, and for the first time, she didn't feel fear.  
  
THE END  
  
* * * *  
  
Just a small near-quotation of one of the 'poems' recited by Michiru on the original  
Sailormoon S CD (aka. 'himeta omoi') I never heard it, but the words seemed to fit well  
as an ending to this little story. I'd like to think of Haruka and Michiru less as heartless  
as just being forced to do what was, at least how it seemed at the time, necessary.   
Anyways, they make a nice couple, more intense than Usagi and Mamoru in the anime,  
which is something they tended to lack sometimes. Hope you liked it. :) 


End file.
